The Faculty of Humanities, Institute for History is looking from the 1st of March 2018 for a Postdoctoral researcher (0.8 FTE). Deadline: 15-12-2017
Project description
The project Covering the Ocean investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts in the Atlantic world, using newspapers from across early modern Europe. Atlantic news represented a unique challenge, as the tension between the infrequent arrival of information and a regular deadline consistently jeopardized the newspapers’ credibility.
The Leiden University Institute for History will be appointing a postdoctoral researcher for a period of 20 months, within the NWO VIDI-project Covering the Ocean: Newspapers and Information Management in the Atlantic World, 1620-1770 led by Prof. Michiel van Groesen.
The candidate will be responsible for the development of the subproject ‘The rhetoric of Atlantic news’, examining and analyzing the rhetorical strategies used in the newspapers’ argumentative discourse. Cooperating closely with the team’s two PhD-students, the postdoc examines the persuasive tone and interdiscursivity in the media by taking into account both the conventions of early modern newspaper journalism and the regular topic shifts to emphasize good news and reduce or ignore undesirable events. Ultimately this subproject answers the question how early modern newspapers employed style and rhetoric to attain and retain credibility.
Key responsibilities
Selection criteria
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